


Famine or Feast

by ssclassof56



Series: Then Live With Me and Be My Love [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reunions, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 01:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: Illya has not seen Faustina in weeks. Nor has he had a decent meal. The agony of choice.





	Famine or Feast

Illya stretched out along the garish hotel coverlet, his back propped against a pile of pillows. The neat gray trousers and white dress shirt, open at the throat, were a welcome change from the oil-stained coveralls which he had placed in the Servidor earlier, and which were currently in the basement, confounding the laundresses. The _Chronicle_ lay at his side, consumed and discarded. He flipped a page of _The New York Times_ and muttered to himself as he scanned the text.

Napoleon exited the bathroom. Illya flicked a glance over the top of the paper, then raised his head, blue eyes wide. “What are you dressed up for?”

His partner crossed to the dresser, brushing an invisible mark from the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket. “Dinner.”

“A bit fancy for room service.”

“I have a date,” he replied smugly and fastened his watch. 

Illya lowered the paper. “You met someone in the bath?”

Napoleon held up his communicator. “Marlene Brown, one of our sultry-voiced contacts. She couldn’t bear for me to return to New York without our meeting in the flesh, so to speak.” He winked into the mirror. “It seems her sister Darlene felt the same way. Rather than strain those familial bonds, I suggested they both show me the real San Francisco.”

“I vaguely recall a song on that theme,” Illya said, reopening the paper with a snap. “It will end badly.”

“Thanks, Carnac, but I’m willing to take that risk.” Napoleon touched a comb to his temples. “After three weeks shipboard, I’ve an appetite that an inferior steak in present company will not satisfy.”

Illya rolled his eyes.“Spare me your appetites, please, or I may lose mine.”

Napoleon gave his reflection a final perusal, cocking his head left and right, and nodded in approval. “We’ll start with drinks at Tosca Café, then head to the Tonga Room for dinner and dancing. If all goes to plan, we’ll breakfast at Manning’s.” He faced his partner. “Should the world need saving before then, pal o’ mine, do me a favor—handle it yourself.”

Illya looked at Napoleon over the top of his glasses. “Do not forget we have an early flight tomorrow.”

Napoleon returned a small salute of acknowledgement. “You know, I did consider asking you along, but then I recalled you’re a practically married man and not allowed to enjoy yourself.”

“Practically married, yes, but not dead,” Illya replied.

“Only until Faustina found out.”

Illya responded with a flash of white teeth and a chuckle.

Napoleon turned toward the door, grimacing. “See you later.” 

“Aren’t you going to cancel your dinner order?”

“You do it. I can’t keep the ladies waiting.” Napoleon turned the latch. “Or better yet, eat both of them. At least you’ll satisfy one kind of appetite.”

Illya shook his head, lips pursed, as his partner closed the door behind him. 

Illya returned his attention to the _Times,_ scanning the page for the unfinished article on the Ellsberg trial. After a futile minute rereading the same sentence, he thrust the paper aside. His current restlessness was not due to the world situation. He pulled off his glasses and sucked the black acetate earpiece thoughtfully. With a sigh, he exchanged the glasses for his communicator and activated it. “Open Channel D.”

“Channel D is open, Illya,” Heather McNabb answered, the click of her knitting needles in the background. “If you want to add anything to your report, it’ll have to wait until morning. Mr. Waverly is gone for the day.”

“I do not wish to speak to Mr. Waverly. Connect me to Faustina.”

“So that’s how it is.” The clicking ceased. “What’s in it for me?”

“The best gift that the hotel drug store has to offer.”

“Wow, big spender. Not a souvenir rock of Alcatraz, though. I’ve got one.” 

The line crackled and hummed, echoing the state of his nerves. 

“Pemberley here.” Faustina’s voice was thick with sleep. 

Illya pushed the superfluous pillows onto the floor and lay back. He rested the communicator on his chest. “It’s I.”

She yawned extravagantly. “Sorry. Doesn’t ring any bells. I know a Me and a Myself. Or is the I short for something?”

Every word reverberated through his sternum. “It is short for ‘I miss you.’”

“Nope. Still can’t place the name.”

“How about ‘I love you. I need you. I want you.’?”

A muffled giggle followed his eloquent declarations. He glared down at the transceiver. “McNabb, get off this channel.”

“Aw, it was just getting good,” Heather said archly. “Bye, kids. See you when you get back.” 

The line clicked at Heather’s departure. Illya sat up, grappling with the communicator. “I thought you had returned to New York.”

“Oh, you know how missions go,” Faustina replied airily. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Illya swung his legs onto the floor and looked around the room. “How is Malibu?”

“Sunny. I’ve worn nothing but a bikini since I got here.”

“That is an exaggeration.”

“A little one,” she admitted, “just like my bikini. How’s San Francisco?”

The curtain rings jangled as Illya tugged the heavy drapery aside. Beyond the windows, a white swirling mass obscured his view of the city. “Foggy,” he said, checking behind each panel. “Do you hear an echo on your end?”

“Nope. Crystal clear. Has the world stopped rocking yet?”

Illya closed his eyes and put a hand to his stomach. “Almost.”

“Poor thing,” she said in mock sympathy. “Every day, when I looked out at the ocean, past the surfers and the motor boats, I’d think about you, miles away in that big rusty freighter, suffering your _mal de mer._”

“Thank you,” he said dryly. He knelt between the beds and peered under each one.

“And at night, I’d step away from the tiki torches to gaze up at the stars, and I’d think, ‘I wonder if Illya is looking at those same stars right now?’”

“I worked the night shift in the engine room. There were no stars.”

She sighed over-dramatically. “That’s too bad. It was such a romantic notion. Was your mission at least successful?”

“It was. We managed to stop the Thrush saboteurs.”

“Good for you. Mine turned out to be a wild goose chase. No diabolical Thrush plot. Just a crackpot anthropologist researching a book, and bunch of other coincidences that spooked the local beach scene. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Very amusing.”

“Paul sends his regards, by the way.”

Illya grunted and put his ear against the connecting door. “I still fail to see why April and Mark were not assigned to the Affair.”

“Because no one would take Mark for a body builder. Paul, on the other hand, is a walking Ken doll.”

“With just as much between the ears.”

She laughed. The sound seemed to come from more than one direction. Illya stepped lightly to the closet, then slid it open abruptly. “Ah-ha!” 

A row of empty hangers clinked in response.

“What was that?” Faustina asked.

“Never mind.”

A knock at the door made him jump. With a satisfied smile that came perilously close to a smirk, he closed his communicator. He crossed to the door and, leaning against the wall with deliberate nonchalance, swung it open. 

A waiter stood behind a cart laden with two plates under cover, two desserts, and an ice bucket. “Good evening, sir,” he said cheerfully.

Illya looked down at his communicator ruefully. “Good evening.” He stepped back to let the waiter pass.

“Where should I set it up?”

“Over here,” a familiar voice answered.

Illya’s head snapped around. A figure sat in the chair by the window, tall brown boots propped on the bed, ankles crossed. The rest of her body was hidden behind the _Times_.

“All righty.” The waiter rolled his cart to the opposing corner and transferred the dishes to the table.

A manicured finger folded down the top of the newspaper. Faustina’s grey eyes, shining with mocking amusement, sought Illya’s. He gazed back, a slight smile denting one side of his mouth, and dipped his head in concession. She had won that round.

Starved for the sight of each other, they continued to stare. Illya raised his arms and braced them against the walls of the shallow entrance way, as if to bar her departure. Faustina looked up and down his frame. Amusement gave way to heat. She caught her bottom lip in her teeth. Illya’s smile faded, and his eyes kindled into blue flames.

“All set. Enjoy your din—” As the waiter turned around, his cheerful words faltered. He gave a low whistle and ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “I wonder what Mary is doing right now?” he said quietly.

Keeping his eyes discreetly lowered, the waiter steered his cart toward the door. He stopped in front of Illya and coughed. He coughed again. Fierce blue eyes challenged him.

“_Bon appétit,_ sir.” 

With an embarrassed start, Illya dropped his arms. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.” He fished a few bills from his pocket and pressed them into the waiter’s extended hand.

The waiter looked down in surprise at the overly generous tip. “No, sir, thank you.” With a jaunty step, he pushed his cart into the hall, pausing to move the Do Not Disturb tag to the outside handle before closing the door behind him.

Faustina folded the paper and tossed it onto the coverlet. “Don’t you just love room service.”

Illya rounded the second bed and stood beside the chair. She stretched out a hand toward him. He clasped it in his own but did not pull her up. His eyes roamed over her, savoring every detail. Gaucho pants of green herringbone and a matching vest hugged her figure in all the right places. Her emerald silk blouse was low cut, its ascot loosely tied. Ash brown hair, streaked by the sun, formed a simple chignon at the nape of her neck. 

“No bikini?” he asked, one brow raised, as his thumb stroked her fingers.

“In this fog? I’d catch my death.”

“Your face is tanned.”

“So is the rest of me.” She grinned. “Wait til you see my freckles.”

“The finest sight I will have had in weeks.”

She shook her head, chuckling. “Considering you’ve been in an engine room, I don’t know that I’m much flattered. Now if it was me, lately surrounded by bronzed gods and goddesses, and I said that…”

His knee nudged her legs, pushing her boots from the bed. With a tug, he pulled her from the chair into his arms. “Then say it.”

She brushed aside the blond hair that hung low on his forehead. Her gaze moved over his face, taking in each well-loved feature before coming to rest on his lips. She leaned forward, bringing her mouth a hairbreadth from his. Their breath mingled as she said, “You’re the best thing I’ve seen in weeks.” 

He closed the infinitesimal distance between them. Their lips met, withdrew, and met again, prolonging the exquisite anticipation. Illya’s hands explored the contours of Faustina’s back, lingering where bone and sinew receded beneath a more yielding softness. His shirt buttons fell open by her own determined hands, as her fingertips sought the soft hair and the lean muscle beneath. Their mouths continued their osculating dance, brushing, teasing, whispering words of tenderness and desire, until even a moment’s separation became unbearable. On a shared groan, the kiss deepened, a heady reacquaintance with sensation and taste. As the first wave of passion crested, their lips gradually resumed more gentle caresses, breathless with the pleasure of reunion. 

“Ambrosia,” Illya murmured against the corner of her mouth.

Faustina’s lips stretched in response. “Coconut. Lightly toasted.”

He traced the contours of her nose with his own. “I knew I smelled macaroons.” With a whisper of silk, the loose knot of her ascot came undone in his hand.

“I’m positively saturated with lotion.”

Illya tipped back his head, brows lowered. “I wager Westcott was eager to get that spot you can never reach.”

“We were posing as lovers,” she replied with a shrug. She lifted the St. Nicholas medallion from his chest and ran the warm metal across her lips. “It would’ve been an unconvincing cover if he couldn’t touch me.”

“So you have acquired both freckles and fingerprints.”

Her grey eyes flashed. “And a strained trapezius to boot.” She rolled her neck with a groan. “Malibu Ken is surprisingly tall.” 

“So while I have spent interminable days in a heaving bunk staring up at your snapshot, you have been gazing up into the smug face of that—”

Faustina cut him off with another kiss, coaxing his hard, disgruntled mouth into renewed ardor. Illya’s arms tightened around her possessively. Her hand plunged into the fall of hair at the nape of his neck. She clung to him as he dipped her back and trailed heated kisses down her throat. 

A low growl, one that had nothing to do with passion, interrupted them. Illya hesitated, his lips on her collar bone. Faustina’s shoulders began to shake. He pinched her backside, and she yelped, then broke into peals of laughter. As he loosened his arms, she tumbled back onto the chair, still rocked with amusement. 

“I give up,” she croaked. “I can complete with a lot of things, but not your stomach.”

Illya raked a hand through his hair. “Perhaps you are just too easily distract—” His stomach sounded again, an extended rumble that caused him to prod his belly in frustration.

She dissolved into fresh laughter. “I think you’d better eat your dinner, and we can try again later.”

“I shall.” He turned on his heel and strode to the small table in the corner, then sat down. He flicked a napkin across his lap before removing the plate covers with cool deliberation.

Faustina watched the display in silent amusement as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Eat them both, just to be sure,” she said, unable to keep the tremor from her voice.

His gaze darted to her as he picked up the knife. “Are you not curious why there are two?” he asked, sawing into his steak.

“Should I be? Should I search the closet and peek under the beds?”

“You could at least pretend to be jealous,” he grumbled, removing a beer from the ice bucket with great dignity. The table top took the brunt of his annoyance as he rested the bottle cap against the edge and pried it off by a slam of his hand. 

“I know one of those dinners was for Napoleon,” Faustina said, “and I also know he got a better offer.”

“So that was your doing.”

“Of course, it was.” She breathed on her nails and rubbed them on her vest. “And if I ever did catch you carrying on with another woman, there would be no fit of jealousy. There’d be swift retribution.”

Illya rolled his eyes and ate a slice of carrot.

Faustina watched in affectionate exasperation as Illya rapidly consumed the first dinner. Unfazed by her silent regard, he wiped his mouth and reached for the other plate. A determined glint lit her eyes. She rose from the chair and stretched. “Well, I think I’ll soak my sore trapezius in a hot bath.” 

“Scrub those fingerprints off, as well.”

The glint became a blaze. She strolled to the table and stood beside him. Illya ate a forkful of harticots verts before looking up, brows raised, eyes cool, pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. Faustina scooped a dollop of chocolate pudding onto her finger. With a smile, she brought the finger to her lips and slowly licked it clean. Illya inhaled sharply, his mouth still full of masticated green beans. He erupted into a fit of coughing as his lungs protested the vegetal invasion. 

Faustina handed him his beer and sauntered to bathroom. As Illya mopped his streaming eyes, the tub began to fill. 

He was fully recovered and spearing a bite of chicken when she returned. He set down his fork, looking at her warily. She leaned against the table and put one boot on his thigh. “A little help, please.”

“Certainly.” Illya wiped his hands on his napkin before reaching for her knee. He dragged the zipper down to its base, then grasped her heel firmly. “Pull.”

Her leg slowly eased from its leather cocoon. When it was free, Illya dropped the boot to the floor. “Next.”

She switched legs, and he lowered the second zipper. His fingertips skimmed her emerald stocking as she drew her leg back. She smiled. The boot landed beside its mate. 

“I assume you can do the rest by yourself,” Illya said, returning his attention to his plate.

“I can, but it’s not as fun.”

His lips flexed, and he quickly put a piece of chicken between them.

Faustina pushed off from the table, but did not leave. With an apparent disregard for his presence, she undid the buttons of the twill vest that tightly corseted her waist, then slipped the garment down her arms and tossed it onto the bed. The wide leather belt followed. 

Illya’s head stayed bent over his dinner, but his gaze frequently slanted up through his lashes. Slowly and methodically, she pulled the silk blouse from her waistband and worked at the column of tiny buttons, starting from the bottom. The parting fabric revealed her tanned midriff centimeter by centimeter, the smooth flesh dotted with new freckles. Behind the top button lay a stark band of paler skin and nothing else. Illya’s grip on his fork tightened until his knuckles turned white.

Faustina’s smile assumed its full, impossible width. She turned around and strolled to the bathroom. The blouse slid down her bare back and onto the floor as she disappeared into a cloud of white vapor.

Illya attacked his remaining meal, more from duty than desire. A hand soon appeared out of the steam and released a bundle of green herringbone. “The tub looks new.” 

Illya resolved to match her casual tone, chit for chat. “The desk clerk said they had remodeled.” 

Two bites later, emerald stockings fluttered to the carpet. “Very deep,” she said, “and wide. They chose well.” 

“You would know best,” he replied, his free hand gripping the table edge. Pride insisted stubbornly that, since Illya could imagine Faustina’s actions in minute, agonizing detail, they were winning this round. Libido argued against a Pyrrhic victory and demanded to know why Pride should be the only one getting any gratification. Their debate had turned violent.

French silk knickers, trimmed in lace, emerged from the cloud to join the pile. Water splashed. “That feels heavenly,” Faustina moaned.

Illya took a long swallow of beer, washing down the last of the chicken. His eyes moved from the bathroom to the chocolate puddings. Pride dealt Libido a stunning blow to the chin. Illya picked up a dessert with grim determination. 

Water continued to splash, accompanied by Faustina’s wordless crooning. “It’s no good,” she called. “I can’t reach that spot between my shoulder blades, no matter how far I bend. I suppose those fingerprints will have to stay.”

Illya’s spoon clattered to the table. “Like hell, they will,” he growled. Libido put two darts in Pride’s chest, knocking it out for the duration. Illya leapt from the chair and marched toward the bathroom, ready to concede defeat. He added his dress shirt to the pile of clothes on the threshold, then squared his bare shoulders. He hoped Faustina would not be gentle with him.


End file.
